Harbour Street by Ann Cleeves
Reviewed by: Dawn Dickey, Adult Services
Genre: Mystery
Suggested Age: Adults
What is the book about?: Police Sergeant Joe Ashworth and his daughter, Jessie, are on a crowded Metro train heading home. Snow on the tracks has made the tracks impassable, so the passengers are transferred to buses to continue their trip. Jessie notices that one passenger, an elderly lady, has not exited the train carriage with the other passengers. Assuming the lady has fallen asleep, Jessie impulsively runs back onto the train to wake the woman. Jessie is horrified to find that the woman, Margaret Krukowski, is dead, murdered in the midst of the crowd. The dead woman lives in and works at a boarding house on Harbour Street in the fictional, decaying seaside town of Mardle in Northumberland. Margaret is an intensely private woman whose life is intertwined with the lives of many characters in the book. The mystery becomes more complex when a second woman is murdered.
My Review: This is an engrossing mystery that kept me guessing until the end. As with most police procedurals, the intrepid Vera Stanhope and her team (including Joe Ashworth and Holly Clarke) slowly, layer by layer, uncover the details of Margaret’s life that led to her murder. Her life and her involvement in the community have many surprises, and I don’t want to say more so that I don’t spoil the plot!
This being the 6th book in the series, I was a little disappointed in the character development, finding some of the characters to be rather flat. And I can’t say that I particularly liked the main character, Inspector Vera Stanhope. At least one of her colleagues would say the same. Here’s what Holly Clarke, one of Stanhope’s team, has to say: “She felt every contact with Vera Stanhope was like an approach to a large and unpredictable dog. You never knew whether it would lick you to death or take a chunk out of your leg.” I am also not sure why the book would have used the American term CSI rather than the British SOCO (“scenes of crime officer”); other British terms and slang were used throughout the book.
Rating: 3.5/5
About FDL Reads
Welcome to FDL Reads, weekly book reviews from Fondulac District Library. Librarians (and possibly some other guest reviewers) review all types of books, from children’s picture books, young adult favorites, to the latest adult thriller, and share their thoughts each week at fondulaclibrary.org. If the book is owned by Fondulac District Library (or another local library), you’ll see a direct link to the catalog entry and whether or not it is available. If it is checked out or at another local library, you will be able to place a hold as long as you have your library card and PIN numbers. As with any book review, these are our opinions…we disagree amongst ourselves about books frequently. We all have different likes and dislikes, which is what makes the world an interesting place. Please enjoy, and keep on reading!